Unfair Advantage: 'The Doping Trade Is a Mafia, Pure and Simple'

Unfair Advantage:'The Doping Trade Is a Mafia, Pure and Simple'

The illegal trade in performance-enhancing drugs and anabolic steroids is booming. In a SPIEGEL interview, Vienna-based investigator Andreas Holzer talks about their hidden dangers, growing use by amateur athletes and why the problem will only continue to worsen.

REUTERS

SPIEGEL: Mr. Holzer, in January 2009, a special commission headed by you began investigating doping networks. Since then, the success rates of Austrian winter athletes have dropped significantly. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, for example, they captured seven fewer medals than they did four years earlier

Andreas Holzer: and you see a connection between the two?

SPIEGEL: You don't?

Holzer: In one year's time, a small special commission cannot cripple doping structures that have been in place for a long time. But we did delve deeply into the material.

SPIEGEL: And what have you found?

Holzer: That the doping trade is a globally networked business comparable to the drug trade -- a mafia, pure and simple.

SPIEGEL: In October, your unit was involved in "Operation Pangea," a major raid in 45 countries that netted 76 suspects and illegal medications with a total market value of roughly $2.6 million (2 million). Where does it all come from?

Holzer: Many compounds come from China, India or Pakistan, where production is cheap and no one gives any thought to the fact that the production process alone can be hazardous to your health. The active ingredients are sold by online suppliers -- often through illegal online pharmacies -- and are shipped via airmail.

SPIEGEL: Are there inspections of these shipments?

Holzer: There are. But, owing to the sheer volume of mail -- and the fact that drugs are disguised within ordinary-looking packages -- without any concrete leads, it's difficult to pick out any suspicious packages.

SPIEGEL: Where do the drugs finally end up?

Holzer: The dealers are often based in Europe -- and that's where the real business gets started. It isn't the manufacturers of the raw ingredients that are making the big profits: rather, it's the producers -- that is, the people who mix the substances in laboratories, fill the finished product into vials and capsules, label them and distribute them around the world.

SPIEGEL: How big are the profits?

Holzer: Average production costs for a package of anabolic steroids run around 50 cents; and then it's sold for 35 to 40. We arrested a dealer in Austria who had made about 2 million in four years' time. Even I am surprised by these kinds of figures. I spent a long time working as a narcotics investigator, which is why I can say that anyone who deals drugs today is exposed to far greater risks than used to be the case. The doping trade isn't just more lucrative; production is less costly and complicated, and shipping is very simple.

SPIEGEL: Stefan Matschiner, the former track and field athlete and sports manager, was recently convicted of trading in doping substances. The case attracted attention because Matschiner was also selling EPO, an endurance-enhancing hormone.

Holzer: I'm convinced that it wasn't an isolated case.

SPIEGEL: Is EPO also being shipped from Asia?

Holzer: In one of the cases we investigated, the dealer was being supplied by a nearby pharmacy. The pharmacist bought the material for 350 and resold it for 550. Other dealers obtained EPO by using forged prescriptions. It even occasionally happens that entire shipments of EPO are stolen from shipping containers and make their way onto the marketplace. That just goes to show how great the demand is.

SPIEGEL: The most outlandish concoctions are sold on the market, including testosterone creams and high-dose anabolic steroid pills. How are these kinds of thing manufactured?

Holzer: You shouldn't be imagining scenes involving doctors or chemists in white coats handling test tubs in a laboratory. In fact, it looks much more like the production of methamphetamines in meth labs, where the drugs are cooked up over a Bunsen burner. In (the southern Austrian state of) Carinthia, we discovered a laboratory in an apartment that included pure substances and a capsule-making machine. The machine is used to fill the active ingredient into tablet capsules or vials. The equipment is readily available, and the production process is simple. And there are no limits to creativity. For example, anabolic "blades" are the latest hit. They're wafers the size of a DIN-A4 piece of paper, onto which the agent -- usually anabolic steroids -- is sprayed. Consumers break off the pre-perforated dose segments and dissolve them on their tongues.

SPIEGEL: What is the quality of the drugs from these makeshift kitchens?

Holzer: Professional production isn't feasible in underground laboratories. No one guarantees sterility, cleanliness or quality. We have questioned athletes who had handball-sized abscesses on their arms that were caused by contaminated compounds. Convicted producers report that they occasionally put twice as much of the active agent into vials so as to guarantee the desired effect beyond the expiration date.

SPIEGEL: How do athletes and dealers of doping agents find each other?

Holzer: By word of mouth, in places such as health clubs, and on online forums. Professional athletes also look for dealers in these same ways. Indeed, only very few of them have a team physician who will take care of everything for them. As a rule, athletes keep an eye on the scene in the various forums and get tips from older athletes. Then they select a doping-agent dealer whom other athletes have already had good experiences with.

SPIEGEL: Where do the deals go down?

Holzer: I don't want to lump everything together, but the focus is on health clubs and shops where nutritional supplements are sold. In many of these shops, we have been able to seize bags full of anabolic steroids, growth hormones and counterfeit Viagra pills. They're simply kept under the counter.

SPIEGEL: Going shopping in a health club could be risky for a high-profile athlete. Are there other ways to get hold of the drugs?

For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol.

Andreas Holzer is one of Europe's leading doping investigators. From January 2009 until January 2010, he led Austria's doping task force in Vienna. After investigators discovered an international network, the task force became part of Austria's federal criminal investigation office. Holzer, 37, and his team have interrogated 1,000 witnesses. There have been 16 arrests as a result and 70 homes searched. As a result of the investigation, Austria's laws have been tightened. As of Jan. 1, 2010, the ingestion of doping drugs is illegal in Austria, with violators facing up to 10 years in prison. Germany has not yet criminalized doping.